#23637: — 05/01  at  11:43 PM
Phillip, your tenacity deserves a better cause! Allow me to improve on your last comment:

(1) Stalin was against evolution. He branded Darwin an idealist (in Marxian it means wrong, against the flow of history and on the waiting list for execution) and Lamarck, Darwin's opponent, a materialist (that is, right). He and Lysenko purged (killed) all biologist they could catch, destroying Russian agriculture by the way. Stalin definitely did not follow evolution, on the contrary, believed in the hereditary transmission of aquired characters. Lamarck says if you train hard and develope your muscles, your son will be born stronger. That sounds historically progressive, but unfortunately it is untrue. No one can accuse Stalin of believing in evolution, and his political decisions - like exterminating the Ukrainian kulak class of prosperous anticommunist farmers - cannot be connected with any biological concept.

(2) Regarding Hitler, he was a failed graphic arts student, and received his biological ideas from the end of century Viennese lumpen (dropout) environment (he resided a long time in public charity hostels). He had a special horror of siphylis that he believed hereditary and purposefully spread by you-know-who. His ideas of a nebolous mystic German volk were not inspired by Darwin.

Therefore, there is no connection between Darwin/biology/science and mass murder. On the other hand, not a few massacres are credited to religious fanatism and hysteria.

#23664: — 05/02  at  08:40 AM
I'll jump back in here for one post. Re carbon-dating dinosaur bones, read http://www.worldbydesign.org/research/c14dating/datingdinosaurs.html. I agree with the author that life has been around for just under 6000 years, but not the universe and earth. They have been around for 13.7 and 4.5 B years, respectively. In fact, the fact that the universe had a beginning in the big bang and is not eternal and infinite has caused many scientists to believe in God, an Initiator. Stephen Hawking is one. Many others have come to believe in God because of the Intelligent Design (a fairly new movement from which this article comes) of the universe and of nature.

Say, one other comment about taking these radiocarbon dates with lots of skepticism. Recently, a tiny skull, claimed to be 18,000 years old and tiny bones, claimed to be 13,000 years old, made big news. I suspect they are simply the remains of children, small humans or pygmies, but secular evolutionists, because of the dating, insist they are from a hominid line different than the line from which came homo sapiens.

But did you read about the Neanderthal Man fiasco? A claimed 36,000 years old skeleton was re-dated to 7,500 years old, another claimed 23,300 years old one to 3,300 years old, and a claimed 27,400 years old skull to 1750 AD! Google-search it.

So view the claimed 18,000 years old date of the small skull and the claimed 13,000 years old bones with lots of skepticism. And open your mind to the possibility that we have been duped by Darwin and his followers. (Not to mention the devil.)

#23749: — 05/02  at  11:03 PM

...The fact that the universe had a beginning in the big bang and is not eternal and infinite has caused many scientists to believe in God, an Initiator... Stephen Hawking is one.

Um, who gives a shite?

That is, what does Stephen Hawking's personal faith have to do with the mountains of undeniable evidence in support of Evolutionary Theory? The "theory" you provide is ideological conspiracy theory, and your lying/arm-waving routine will likely not convince anyone.

Many others have come to believe in God because of the Intelligent Design (a fairly new movement from which this article comes) of the universe and of nature.

Again, who gives a shite? How does this legitimize anything you are saying? People have forever believed in stupid things, my friend.

I suspect they are simply the remains of children, small humans or pygmies...

Ah, now I understand perfectly.

This is a classic example of Creationistic arrignorance (an arrogance/ignorance combo move). He/She dreams up some uneducated and wildly speculative hypothesis, and without a shred of self-contempt goes on to present this whimsical notion as Truth...

...all the while assuming that the scientists - who actually did the research and understand the mechanisms and processes involved - hasn't ever before taken into consideration their (routinely elementary) "brilliant insight."

Why would a scientist want to publish false data, when he/she knows that some other scientist will eventually discover the true answers?

...But secular evolutionists, because of the dating, insist they are from a hominid line different than the line from which came homo sapiens.

Sigh. The fossil's "phylogenetic" placement has nothing to do with a scientist's belief/nonbelief in God and little to do with the radiometric dating of the bone material.

Please stop being so lazy, and do some research!

Much of the analysis done was of the comparative anatomy of the bones, to bone fragments of other known species (i.e. known to be of a "non-sapiens" lineage). You'd be surprised how much we can tell about a an organism just by looking at the little bumps and ridges and squigglies on their preserved selves!

Science is objective; all of your commonsensical ideas have been thoroughly researched, and a relatively firm concensus has been reached. Of course, there is still much science to do, and the final story may still be out of our grasp.

There will never be a time when scientists say, "This is the final answer." Certainly, some things are presumed so as to allow for the advancement of knowledge; an evolved knowledge bank allows us to do just that (without worry of circular argumentation). Accordingly, if any of the current scientific theories do fail (and surely they will), it will be a scientist who is the discoverer - and his/her findings will be grounded in empirical findings, NOT on mere daydreams.

...And open your mind to the possibility that we have been duped by Darwin and his followers. (Not to mention the devil.)

If Darwin had been wrong, we all would be making "Darwinian" jokes along with always delightful "Lemarckian" just-so-story jokes. Trust me, I can already think of several jokes to make fun of the Failed Theory of Natural Selection [sic].

Another thing... On behalf of my fellow scientists and laypersons, I would like to send out (down?) a big "Thank You" to Satan for the wonderful gift he has given us - The gift of being able to understand the Natural world around us.

Thanks, buddy!

#23751: — 05/02  at  11:27 PM
The devil?

Now there's a scientific concept.

What are you, six years old?

#23756: — 05/03  at  12:05 AM
Harry -

I was referring to clivedcampbell's quote (blockquoted), where he implied that we [Evolutionists] have been "duped" by the devil, as well as Darwin and his followers.

I can only assume that by "duped" he meant "gave us an accurate biological theory."

So, while I obviously owe much credit to Darwin (and others), I just wanted to point out that (apparently) we should also be thanking Satan, as well, for allowing us a better understanding of our beautifully complex natural world.

Get it, that's how we were duped...we were duped into knowing some really cool stuff about biology!

Fine, I guess it wasn't that funny. Then again, I wasn't the one who said it. Meh!

#23765: — 05/03  at  06:30 AM
Jeebus and Harry, actually I am 52 and think Absolute Evil, personified in the Devil, and Absolute Good, personified in God, is scientific in both hard and soft science. E.g., on the soft science side, why is man a moral being, with a conscience, recognizing good and evil, and experiencing guilt? If we simply evolved in the classic "survival of the fittest" struggle, then there is no Absolute Being, holding Absolutes, and everything is relative to me as an individual and survival. If you competed for my survival, Jeebus and Harry, I could murder you and there would be nothing wrong with that, because Man would be the Absolute, and so anything in them would be within the law of nature. But we all know and experience that this is not true. There is something Higher that is pulling us to perfection and beauty, to faith, hope and love. That something Higher is God and He exists in Trinity because He is love: Father-Son-Spirit paralleled by Man-Woman-Children who possess His image, though fallen.

But fallenness means that I will never convince you of this or creationism unless God gives you eyes to see. Your faith, and it is faith, is evolutionary secular humanism and mine is creational Christianity. This topic is one of many examples of how utterly committed you are to your godless faith in spite of overwhelming and powerful evidence against it in many sciences: i.e., that you can believe that soft tissues, even though inside a T-rex thigh bone, encased in sandstone, would not have decayed in 68 million years is utterly absurd and idiotic. But understandable since you will not believe in God. You will die in your sins.

#23768: — 05/03  at  07:22 AM
Well, I'm convinced. Sign me up for Jesus! I'll take two.

#23769: PZ Myers — 05/03  at  07:45 AM
Mr Campbell has missed the obvious explanation:

This tyrannosaur was obviously a saint, it's tissues incorruptible. I expect its bones to be encased in an ornate gilt box and paraded through town on its very own feast day.

Seriously, though the earnest stupidity of his comments are sufficient to persuade me that he is deranged. What exactly does happen to soft tissues that are sealed inside dense stone, isolated from air and bacteria? I don't know. I'd like to see experiments done.

Oh, and no one thinks this tissue is unchanged. There are tiny scraps that retain some of the superficial characteristics of soft tissue, but we haven't yet seen any chemical analysis of them—the article cited above only reports on appearance and texture. But I've got an open mind: I don't know what the conditions were inside that bone, nor do I know exactly what the investigators have in their hands right now.

#23770: — 05/03  at  07:45 AM
clivedcampbell promises threatens,

You will die in your sins.

For such a mindnumbingly laughable statement, I can only respond by quoting one of the great minds in contemporary television...

Peter Griffin (Family Guy), while teaching Sunday School:

"And if you're pure of heart indeed, you will go to a beautiful place called Heaven...

...Nah, I'm yankin' ya! You just rot in the ground."

#23776: — 05/03  at  08:16 AM
Harry Eagar wrote:

All religions are cults, Philip.

So have you written to all the dictionaries, etc. to inform them that they are all wrong? Beside, you had already referred to religions, and could quite easily have referred to the "members" of those religions, but you chose to use the loaded word "cultists". Clearly you are attempting to denigrate rather than put forward an argument of substance.

Harry Eager continued with his vilification:

...outsiders see the same thing -- ridiculous superstitions based (in the case of Christianity and Judaism) on the vile ravings of a bunch of ignorant goatwallopers.

In other words, "I've got nothing worthwhile to say, so I'll just ridicule and denigrate".

jaimito wrote:

(1) Stalin was against evolution. He branded Darwin an idealist (in Marxian it means wrong, against the flow of history and on the waiting list for execution) and Lamarck, Darwin's opponent, a materialist (that is, right). He and Lysenko purged (killed) all biologist they could catch, destroying Russian agriculture by the way. Stalin definitely did not follow evolution, on the contrary, believed in the hereditary transmission of aquired characters.

On the contrary, Stalin became an atheist upon reading Darwin and recommended the book to a friend. Lamarkism is not opposed to evolution, but is a (now discredited) mechanism of evolution; the method that Darwin adopted, from memory.

jaimito wrote:

(2) Regarding Hitler, he was a failed graphic arts student, and received his biological ideas from the end of century Viennese lumpen (dropout) environment (he resided a long time in public charity hostels). He had a special horror of siphylis that he believed hereditary and purposefully spread by you-know-who. His ideas of a nebolous mystic German volk were not inspired by Darwin.

None of that except for the last sentence--a claim, not an argument--is relevant to the question. However, Sir Arthur Kieth wrote: "The German Fuhrer . . . consciously sought to make the practice of Germany conform to the theory of evolution." and "The leader of Germany is an evolutionist, not only in theory, but, as millions know to their cost, in the rigor of its practice.".

Jeebus wrote in response to clivedcampbell:

That is, what does Stephen Hawking's personal faith have to do with the mountains of undeniable evidence in support of Evolutionary Theory? The "theory" you provide is ideological conspiracy theory, and your lying/arm-waving routine will likely not convince anyone.

As opposed to your statement by assertion? Claiming "mountains of undeniable evidence" does not make it so, especially when so many people deny it!

Jeebus also wrote:

How does this legitimize anything you are saying? People have forever believed in stupid things, my friend.

I know. Like evolution. And how does anything that you are saying legitimise anything?

Jeebus added:

Ah, now I understand perfectly.

This is a classic example of Creationistic arrignorance (an arrogance/ignorance combo move). He/She dreams up some uneducated and wildly speculative hypothesis, and without a shred of self-contempt goes on to present this whimsical notion as Truth...

...all the while assuming that the scientists - who actually did the research and understand the mechanisms and processes involved - hasn't ever before taken into consideration their (routinely elementary) "brilliant insight."

As opposed to how you ridicule and denigrate, along with name-calling, but offer no actual arguments? And not only that, you misrepresent the situation as one of scientists vs. creationists, when the truth is that there are many (albeit a minority of) scientists that are creationists. But misrepresenting reality seems to be the norm for anti-creationists.

Jeebus wrote:

Why would a scientist want to publish false data, when he/she knows that some other scientist will eventually discover the true answers?

Creationists don't claim that evolutionary scientists (as opposed to all scientists) are deliberately falsifying data (although there are exceptions!). You appear to have read that into clivedcampbell's comments, because he didn't claim that. Rather, evolutionists are working in a particular paradigm that colours their views.

Jeebus wrote:

Science is ob jective;...

Yes, but we are talking about evolution, not science.

Jeebus wrote:

... all of your commonsensical ideas have been thoroughly researched, and a relatively firm concensus has been reached.

Appeal to popularity is not a valid form or argument. But thanks for acknowledging that creation is scientific in the sense that it can be tested.

Jeebus wrote:

Of course, there is still much science to do, and the final story may still be out of our grasp.

So creation could still be true?

Jeebus wrote:

There will never be a time when scientists say, "This is the final answer." Certainly, some things are presumed so as to allow for the advancement of knowledge; an evolved knowledge bank allows us to do just that (without worry of circular argumentation). Accordingly, if any of the current scientific theories do fail (and surely they will), it will be a scientist who is the discoverer - and his/her findings will be grounded in empirical findings, NOT on mere daydreams.

So creation is still a scientific possibility?

Jeebus wrote:

Another thing... On behalf of my fellow scientists and laypersons, I would like to send out (down?) a big "Thank You" to Satan for the wonderful gift he has given us - The gift of being able to understand the Natural world around us.

As I have already stated, it was belief in the Creator God that led to modern science.

Beyond that this page has degenerated into further ridicule purely because the bibliosceptics here have a different worldview to clivedcampbell. He may be getting off-topic, but that doesn't warrant the denigration of all Christians that follows in response.
__________________________________

PZ Myers, is it possible to do anything about the problem that putting the word "object" (or any word with that sequence of letters, such as "objective") in a block quote, trashes that quote?

#23787: — 05/03  at  09:51 AM
Phillip, Lamarkism is indeed a mechanism of evolution, mea culpa, mea gravissima culpa. Regarding Stalin, he was rebelling against the sadistic (and probably pederastic) monks of the institute where he was studying, and no lecture of Darwin turned him to atheism. He was not interested in biology but in destroying the Tzarist colonial empire. The only thing that wrote was on nationalities. Regarding Hitler, he never mentioned evolution except in the lumpen sense he picked up in charity hostels, of "dog eats dog" or "survival of the strongest". Darwin described a natural phenomenon he observed, he certainly never proposed to "improve" upon natural selection. In general, political leaders are no ideologues, they just pick up bits enabling them to talk fluently on any subject. I feel that one most powerful emotional appeal of creationism is the idea that atheism and darwinism are at the source of the horrors of the 20th Century, and that religion is required to prevent those evils in the future. In order to protect and increase the authority of religion and the Bible, you seem to feel necessary to destroy evolution and to downgrade science in general. I repeat, Phillip, this is not effective, firstly because biological science is unrelated to those political horrors, and secondly because science is a method that works exceedingly well and produces results. All, absolutely all claims of supernatural intervention have been debunked. No one could ever reproduce the miracles described in the Bible. Personally, I am not against religion at all, but up to a limit, which is when it starts causing ignorance (like teaching creationism in schools as an alternative to evolution) and causing actual harm (like people going to faith medicine men instead of conventional doctors).

#23789: — 05/03  at  09:54 AM
Philip J. Rayment:

Claiming "mountains of undeniable evidence" does not make it so, especially when so many people deny it!

You're right, it doesn't matter whether I say there is lots of evidence. But, I don't see where it would have been appropriate to start spouting off references to biology journals. The data is ubiquitous and is constantly out on display within these threads, and the fact that some people can't accept it - simply due to ideological belief - does not falsify it in the least.

Philip J. Rayment:

I know [that people have forever believed in stupid things]... like evolution. And how does anything that you are saying legitimise anything?

You seemed to feel quite threatened by evolution. Do you think we're trying to disprove God? Yes, it must be scary to be having your entire world being pulled out from under you... by the Soulless Horror of Science (copyright PZ Myers)! Of course, if you re-read my posts, I never mentioned God (or not-God) as evidence for evolution, OR that I used not-God a priori when looking for scientific answers!

I don't want to get into the "compatibility of science and religion" debate, but my opinion is that good science can be done by taking aim at the pitfalls of hell, or by yearning to understand the world provided by God.

Again, nothing I say can necessarily "legitimize" evolutionary findings. But still, what evidence should I have presented after hearing,

"I think Absolute Evil, personified in the Devil, and Absolute Good, personified in God, is scientific in both hard and soft science."

Seriously. How does one quantify "evil" and "good"? What are the SI Units for "Devil"?

I'm not saying anything about whether the devil or god exist, but there is certainly no evidence that suggests they do. Even if there were anti-Devil/God data, I highly doubt that it would come from biology.

Philip J. Rayment:

As opposed to how you ridicule and denigrate, along with name-calling, but offer no actual arguments?

Is it not arrogant and ignorant to assume that your uneducated and biased viewpoint is obviously more accurate and "perfect" than those who do (actual) biology for a living?

Please, why should I tiptoe around just because you think our data are disrespectful to your God? His ideas are nonscientific, and they should be exposed as such.

Philip J. Rayment:

Creationists don't claim that evolutionary scientists (as opposed to all scientists) are deliberately falsifying data...

No, they don't come right out and say it, but that is also one of their favorite methods. However, as I mentioned above, to assume that scientists are just "ignoring" creationist lines of evidence and are "subjectively interpreting data" is a clever way of saying that scientists are biased and closed-minded. Which, of course, is pretty funny...

...especially coming from people who trust in the invisible (on the whole, not a terrible thing), yet selectively and unashamedly ignore the reality around them.

Philip J. Rayment:

Yes, but we are talking about evolution, not science.

So, you agree that science is objective.

Evolutionary theory is exhibited through science, and thus is also objective.

Evolutionism is not a religion!

Philip J. Rayment, after quoting me with hilarious context:

So creation could still be true?

Creation, the act of God poofing life into existance? Um, I honestly don't think that happened. I'm not sure how there ever could be evidence for Creation, so it will be tough to convince me. About creation, I can say that if it happened, God intended for life to evolve just as it has.

Philip J. Rayment:

As I have already stated, it was belief in the Creator God that led to modern science.

I'm sorry, but this is a terrible argument and even worse logic. Of course, it's also ignorant of the role religion played in the development of science.

Yes, it was the Creator God that led to much of modern science. But, were any of these scientists putting God into their formulas? Were they establishing God constants? Were they taking into account God's supposed violation of causal closure?

No. They all thought of God as the ultimate "first cause." They all considered him to be an epiphenomenal puppet, that set things in motion, motion that would follow scientific (i.e. materialistic) laws.

Honestly, I couldn't care less about clivedcampbell's worldview. I have not denigrated Christians on this thread. My "criticisms" of Creationism lie not with their theistic beliefs, but their (non-)scientific hypotheses, and attempts to portray them as worthy of merit in the scientific community.

They do not.</b>

#23881: — 05/03  at  10:50 PM
Phillip, following on your (correct) observation on Lamarck, how can a well-read person like you accept the literality of the Bible and at the same time, explain Jacob's animal breeding methods? Laban cheated Jacob out his salary (a share of newborn sheep), so Jacob cheated back on Laban by inducing the birth of white sheep, which were his according to the terms of their contract. The Bible tells us that Jacob applied clever genetics, placing white twigs in front of pregnant ewes. Now, we know quite a bit about sheep genetics: Jacob's method could never have worked. Since infancy I wonder how this story could have been accepted by generations of pastoralists with hands-on knowledge of sheep, and how continues being accepted as literal truth by educated people like you. Will you please illuminate me?

#23883: — 05/03  at  10:56 PM
Philip, it is always worthwhile to point out that religion is evil, that your particular religion, especially, is a murderous racket whose disgusting god tells fathers to murder their sons -- and gets praised for it!

No lesson could be more valuable. It'd save you a lot of money; you wouldn't have to tithe to those crooks any more.

I'm agnostic about what was inside the bone. I think I'll wait for some competent persons to make observations and then formulate an hypothesis about what happened. Maybe it will even be a testable hypothesis.

Anyhow, I won't just make crap up like you do.

Third point: I understand that you would like to kill me, either way, either because if you didn't believe in your creepy god, there's nothing internal in you to restrain you; or because you do believe in your creepy god and he seems to always be telling his people to kill people like me, and they keep doing it.

But maybe my brother would respond by killing you. Or my cousin. Somebody in my family, anyway. No need for a god to figure that one out.

(Sorry, jeebus, it's hard to keep the woowoos straight without a scorecard.)

#24286: — 05/07  at  08:30 AM
jaimito wrote:

Regarding Stalin, he was rebelling against the sadistic (and probably pederastic) monks of the institute where he was studying, and no lecture of Darwin turned him to atheism. He was not interested in biology but in destroying the Tzarist colonial empire. The only thing that wrote was on nationalities.

What's biology got to do with evolution? Seriously, even if he wasn't interested in the biology of evolution, his ideas were based on the principles of evolution. Rebelling against the monks may have been part of his motive, but Darwin provided the rationale.

jaimito wrote:

Regarding Hitler, he never mentioned evolution except in the lumpen sense he picked up in charity hostels, of "dog eats dog" or "survival of the strongest".

Whether he mentioned evolution by name is not the point. His ideas were clearly based on it, as admitted by Sir Arthur Keith in the quote I included in my last post.

jaimito wrote:

In order to protect and increase the authority of religion and the Bible, you seem to feel necessary to destroy evolution and to downgrade science in general.

Evolutionists are doing their best to destroy the Biblical record of creation; I'm simply fighting back. And disagreeing with evolution is not downgrading science, which I have a high regard for.

jaimito wrote:

I repeat, Phillip, this is not effective,...

Sorry, but it is proving to be effective.

jaimito wrote:

...firstly because biological science is unrelated to those political horrors,...

Yes, but we're talking about evolution, not biological science.

jaimito wrote:

...and secondly because science is a method that works exceedingly well and produces results.

True. But evolution is a story about the past that is therefore beyond the scope of scientific observation, testing, and repeatability. Evolution is (claimed) history, not science.

jaimito wrote:

All, absolutely all claims of supernatural intervention have been debunked.

Most would disagree with you, claiming instead that it is not possible to debunk claims of the supernatural, because the supernatural is not testable.

jaimito wrote:

No one could ever reproduce the miracles described in the Bible.

And who claims they could? The miracles are claimed to be acts of God, not of humans, so nobody would expect us mere mortals to be able to reproduce them. Creationists don't claim that creation is scientific either, for the same reason that they deny that evolution is scientific. But it is the evolutionists that claim miracles as scientific, such as the miracle that new genetic information can arise for no reason and without an intelligence, despite observations that this doesn't happen.

jaimito wrote:

Personally, I am not against religion at all, but up to a limit, which is when it starts causing ignorance (like teaching creationism in schools as an alternative to evolution) ...

And how does teaching creation cause ignorance? As I have repeatedly said, a creationary outlook was what gave rise to modern science. Rather, belief in evolution encourages ignorance. For example, evolutionary belief in so-called vestigial organs discouraged said organs being studied for a long time, because of the belief that they had no purpose.

jaimito wrote:

...and causing actual harm (like people going to faith medicine men instead of conventional doctors).

Christianity encourages people to go to conventional doctors. One of the gospel writers was a doctor. Creationists made many of the medicinal discoveries, such as Joseph Lister and sanitary practices, Louis Pasteur and germs, Dr. Raymond Damadian and Magnetic Resonance Imaging. On the other hand, evolution has encouraged an over-willingness to remove organs such as the tonsils, on the belief that they are useless evolutionary leftovers (which is not to say that they shouldn't be removed if they really are causing a problem).

Jeebus wrote:

The data is ubiquitous and is constantly out on display within these threads, and the fact that some people can't accept it - simply due to ideological belief - does not falsify it in the least.

Agree. Except that I say that of creation, not evolution. The evidence in this particular thread is more consistent with creation, as was tacitly acknowledged by the evolutionists who brought creation up in this thread.

Jeebus wrote:

Do you think we're trying to disprove God?

Some are. Others are trying to undermine Him.

I'm skipping some of your post because it relates more to your reply to another poster with whom I don't fully agree.

Jeebus wrote:

I'm not saying anything about whether the devil or god exist, but there is certainly no evidence that suggests they do.

There isn't? Many, many, people disagree. Our observations of the natural world lead us to understand that information only comes from an intelligent source. The only postulated intelligent source for the information of the DNA is God. That may not constitute proof of God, but it is certainly evidence. And that's just one example.

Jeebus wrote:

Is it not arrogant and ignorant to assume that your uneducated and biased viewpoint is obviously more accurate and "perfect" than those who do (actual) biology for a living?

jaimito disagrees with you. He refers to me with the words "a creationist of your intelligence". Regardless, it is not just "my" viewpoint, but that of (some) "who do (actual) biology for a living"! Creation is believed by many very intelligent, well-educated people, including biologists. They may be in a minority, but it is a very significant minority, and you do your argument no favours to pretend that such do not exist.

Jeebus wrote:

Please, why should I tiptoe around just because you think our data are disrespectful to your God? His ideas are nonscientific, and they should be exposed as such.

He is everyone's God, including those who don't acknowledge Him. I have no problem with you arguing that creation is wrong, but ridiculing and denigrating is not argument, and if anything demonstrates a lack of argument.

Jeebus wrote:

No, they don't come right out and say it, but that is also one of their favorite methods. However, as I mentioned above, to assume that scientists are just "ignoring" creationist lines of evidence and are "subjectively interpreting data" is a clever way of saying that scientists are biased and closed-minded. Which, of course, is pretty funny...

Of course. All scientists are ob jective and infallible. My apologies for not acknowledging that. I guess that is why we have the frauds of Piltdown man and Haeckel, the journals that won't publish papers from creationary scientists because they are creationary, and the revision of previous interpretations. Before you jump, I'm not suggesting that there is anything wrong with revising interpretations, but it demonstrates that it is an interpretation, not an objective truth.

Jeebus wrote:

...especially coming from people who trust in the invisible (on the whole, not a terrible thing), yet selectively and unashamedly ignore the reality around them.

And yet you have not demonstrated any cases of ignoring reality, as opposed to disagreeing with a theory.

Jeebus wrote:

So, you agree that science is ob jective.

Of course. But that doesn't mean that all its practitioners are always objective.

Jeebus wrote:

Evolutionary theory is exhibited through science, and thus is also ob jective.

Evolution is an explanation about the past to explain the present. Science does not have the past to observe and test, so evolution remains a story, not science.

Jeebus emphatically wrote:

Evolutionism is not a religion!

Oh? Not according to some anti-creationists:

Professor Michael Ruse wrote:

Evolution is promoted by its practitioners as more than mere science. Evolution is promulgated as an ideology, a secular religion — a full-fledged alternative to Christianity, with meaning and morality. I am an ardent evolutionist and an ex-Christian, but I must admit that in this one complaint — and Mr Gish is but one of many to make it — the literalists are absolutely right. Evolution is a religion. This was true of evolution in the beginning, and it is true of evolution still today.

… Evolution therefore came into being as a kind of secular ideology, an explicit substitute for Christianity.

After Jeebus indicated that science is still open to further discoveries, I asked if creation could still be true. Jeebus responded:

Creation, the act of God poofing life into existance? Um, I honestly don't think that happened. I'm not sure how there ever could be evidence for Creation, so it will be tough to convince me. About creation, I can say that if it happened, God intended for life to evolve just as it has.

Which avoided answering the question, instead offering an opinion on whether it was true. And in this post I have offered some evidence for creation.

Jeebus wrote:

Yes, it was the Creator God that led to much of modern science. But, were any of these scientists putting God into their formulas? Were they establishing God constants? Were they taking into account God's supposed violation of causal closure?

What is the relevance of that? I have mentioned how a belief in the Creator God led to science. The point that other things might not have happened in a red herring.

Jeebus wrote:

No. They all thought of God as the ultimate "first cause." They all considered him to be an epiphenomenal puppet, that set things in motion, motion that would follow scientific (i.e. materialistic) laws.

That's a contradiction. Materialism is the notion that matter is all that there is, i.e. that there is no supernatural. And neither did they consider God a puppet.

Jeebus wrote:

I have not denigrated Christians on this thread.

I agree that you haven't much. But my comment in that regard was with reference to this that you wrote:

This is a classic example of Creationistic arrignorance (an arrogance/ignorance combo move). He/She dreams up some uneducated and wildly speculative hypothesis, and without a shred of self-contempt goes on to present this whimsical notion as Truth...

I reckon that qualifies as denigration of creationists (and I didn't say that you denigrated Christians per se).

jaimito wrote:

Phillip, ... how can a well-read person like you accept the literality of the Bible and at the same time, explain Jacob's animal breeding methods? Laban cheated Jacob out his salary (a share of newborn sheep), so Jacob cheated back on Laban by inducing the birth of white sheep, which were his according to the terms of their contract. The Bible tells us that Jacob applied clever genetics, placing white twigs in front of pregnant ewes. Now, we know quite a bit about sheep genetics: Jacob's method could never have worked. Since infancy I wonder how this story could have been accepted by generations of pastoralists with hands-on knowledge of sheep, and how continues being accepted as literal truth by educated people like you. Will you please illuminate me?

See here.

Harry Eagar wrote:

Philip, it is always worthwhile to point out that religion is evil, ...

What's "evil"? The following was published today, but I have edited it slightly for this context:

First of all, please try to justify the concept of evil under your own evolutionary framework. I.e., if we are just rearranged pond scum, the result of survival of the fittest, then what could evil mean? What is the difference under your framework between a terrorist blowing up 3,000 people in the Twin Towers and a frog eating 3,000 flies? In fact, since under evolutionary theory your brain is just a piece of meat with neuronal connections, so even your moral sense is merely an illusion that provided survival advantage. The famous atheistic evolutionary propagandist Richard Dawkins agreed that evolution “leads to … a moral vacuum, in which their best impulses have no basis in nature” (see this exchange between Dawkins and Lanier). See also Bomb-building vs. the biblical foundation so you might understand what the moral argument is and what it is now.

Actually, I was in two minds about whether or not to respond to your post. It was so arrogant and rude that it doesn't deserve a response. On the other hand, it is so easy to answer, that I couldn't resist!

Harry Eager wrote:

...that your particular religion, especially, is a murderous racket ...

Yep. That why is has a command, "You shall not murder"!

Harry Eager wrote:

...whose disgusting god tells fathers to murder their sons -- and gets praised for it!

I guess that's why the Bible says, "Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord."

Harry Eager wrote:

Anyhow, I won't just make up ... like you do.

And yet you have not demonstrated one thing that I have made up!

Harry Eager wrote:

Third point: I understand that you would like to kill me, ...

Yes, as a good Christian, I will ignore that command against murder.

Harry Eager wrote:

...either way, either because if you didn't believe in your creepy god, there's nothing internal in you to restrain you; ...

True, my belief that murder is wrong will not influence my decision to murder you one little bit.

Harry Eager wrote:

...or because you do believe in your creepy god and he seems to always be telling his people to kill people like me, and they keep doing it.

Yep, that's why Christian-founded organisations like the Red Cross and World Vision are out there murdering people rather than trying to save their lives.

Harry Eager wrote:

But maybe my brother would respond by killing you. Or my cousin. Somebody in my family, anyway. No need for a god to figure that one out.

Oops! I'd better be careful. God tells me that murder is wrong, but evolution teaches that we only got to be here by killing off the less-fit. So I have no reason to think that Harry's relatives would have any compunction against killing me!

(Except of course that, presumably, Harry lives in a society that's had a Christian background and that Christian values against murder are still held even by many non-Christians.)

#24294: — 05/07  at  11:46 AM
Your silly book means nothing to me, Philip. I am among your god's unchosen, so I'd owe him nothing even if he did exist.

I just observe what Christians do. They murder.

Only when secularists obtain civil power, as in the United States, are Christians restrained from killing.

1,900 years of murdering Jews ought to cause Christians to examine their consciences, but, as you say, you are internally empty. You have to have something inside to have a conscience. It's a thing not even a god can give you.

#24313: — 05/07  at  11:06 PM
Philip, I shall start by admitting that you are trying to answer all my questions and observations. Regarding Jacob's magical cattle breeding methods, I followed your link and learned that the Bible is so unclear and ambiguous that a clever and feasible interpretation of the story can be proposed. It was unwise on my side to enter an area I know only superficially.

Regarding Creationism, I thought it was such a nonsense that cannot be effective, but you countered saying that it is proving to be effective, and on reflexion, you may be right. People finds evolution very hard to digest, they dont like the idea that they rised up from the primordial mud through a senseless mechanism of natural selection and not by the hand of a great deity. Creationism offers an aesthetically more attractive explanation than blind evolution, and the Evangelium, I think, translates as "Good News". So I retract that Creationism is not effective, it is, people seems to like it.

The problem is that Creationism is wrong, untrue. Biological nature operates by evolution. There is no doubt about that among scientists and their explanation makes total sense. You say it is presumed history. I disagree, evolution is a mechanism that has predictive power and it can be and was modelled on computers, it simulates observed natural patterns, and it works and calculates the past and the future. It is untrue and childish to say that the past cannot be verified because no one was there to see it and take pictures. We have firsthand written history of the last 3 to 5 thousand years, history works logically and slowly, so we can easily extrapolate and work out what was going on even 10,000 years ago. And so on in evolution, in geology, in astronomy. In general, I get the impression that you do not deny scientific thought and therefore tend to avoid discussing them (except, may be, carbon dating).

The question is if we should teach the coming generations the truth of an indifferent universe, or the sweet hope of divine creation and eternal personal life. I am for teaching the truth. Anyway, when death becomes an immediate probability and reality turns unacceptable, people runs away from truth and looks for refuge in the (illusory) hope of religion. There is no chance that religion will ever disappear. But science may easily disappear so we need to strenghten and support it. For example, by teaching it in schools.

#24315: — 05/08  at  12:50 AM
jaimito wrote the bits in boxes:

Philip, I shall start by admitting that you are trying to answer all my questions and observations.

Thank you. The Bible instructs us to have an answer ready for those that question our faith, and I do try that. And I appreciate that, unlike one person in particular who is so "eagar" to keep throwing out accusations and insults and ignoring points made in return, you are trying to be fair and reasonable and actually discuss the issues.

Regarding Jacob's magical cattle breeding methods, I followed your link and learned that the Bible is so unclear and ambiguous that a clever and feasible interpretation of the story can be proposed. It was unwise on my side to enter an area I know only superficially.

Yes, I suspect that was a good part of the problem. The Bible doesn't claim to tell us everything about everything, and a significant proportion of what the Bible records is history, including recording the evil, wrong, or simply mistaken things that people did. In reference to the incident with Jacob, you say that it is unclear and ambiguous, but I would respond by saying that the Bible was simply recording a historical event, not giving instruction on how to farm sheep. No, it wasn't an arbitrarily-chosen bit of history; there was a reason to recording this incident, but the reason was not one of teaching farming practices. The problem may be in not reading this incident in context.

Regarding Creationism, I thought it was such a nonsense that cannot be effective, but you countered saying that it is proving to be effective, and on reflexion, you may be right. People finds evolution very hard to digest, they dont like the idea that they rised up from the primordial mud through a senseless mechanism of natural selection and not by the hand of a great deity. Creationism offers an aesthetically more attractive explanation than blind evolution, and the Evangelium, I think, translates as "Good News". So I retract that Creationism is not effective, it is, people seems to like it.

Except that in my opinion the reason it is proving effective is that it is intellectually satisfying. Creationists are reaching people who would otherwise not darken the door of a church. For example, I have a friend who was a science student and who, under the influence of friends and relatives, felt like becoming a Christian, but didn't, simply because he couldn't, in his words, "put my faith in a book that science has proved to be wrong". This was particularly with reference to evolution and the like. But material from creationists opened his mind to accept that science had not proved the Bible wrong. He is now a PhD and a Christian.

The problem is that Creationism is wrong, untrue.

That's the crux of the question, isn't it? But have you really studied the evidence for creation and against evolution? Have you really looked at this issue from both sides and fairly weighed the evidence? The mass media, the education system, and science journals will give you lots of arguments for evolution, and you will hardly get any information from the other side unless you are prepared to go looking for it. Unless you have done that, are you really in a position to say that creation is wrong?

Biological nature operates by evolution.

What do you mean by "evolution"? One of the problems with this debate is that evolutionists conflate a whole range of different things into that one word. I'll come back to this at the end of this post.

There is no doubt about that among scientists ...

That is simply untrue. The majority view is that evolution is true, but there are many scientists that do question or reject evolution.

...and their explanation makes total sense.

I, and many others, disagree.

You say it is presumed history. I disagree, evolution is a mechanism that has predictive power ...

What has it predicted that has turned out to be true. Actually, you shouldn't answer that until we first of clarify just what you mean by "evolution".

...and it can be and was modelled on computers, it simulates observed natural patterns, and it works and calculates the past and the future.

As I think I have already mentioned, computer modelling has also shown that evolution doesn't work. And computer modelling of evolution involves an inaccurate simulation at some point, such as Dawkin's model that had a pre-determined target phrase, unlike evolution that has no target to work towards.

It is untrue and childish to say that the past cannot be verified because no one was there to see it and take pictures. We have firsthand written history of the last 3 to 5 thousand years, history works logically and slowly, so we can easily extrapolate and work out what was going on even 10,000 years ago.

We can? So if we had written history of only the last 2000 years, for example, we could extrapolate and learn about the start of the Roman empire? I doubt it, beyond trivial things like figuring that it must have started.

And so on in evolution, in geology, in astronomy.

So, hypothetically, if 4300 years ago there was a one-off global flood, we could learn about that by extrapolation? How would we really learn about unique past events by extrapolation? Really, your suggestion of extrapolation presumes that extrapolation is a valid method.

In general, I get the impression that you do not deny scientific thought and therefore tend to avoid discussing them (except, may be, carbon dating).

No, I don't avoid discussing other areas of science, but in threads such as this one my intention is to just respond to claims that knock the creationary view.

The question is if we should teach the coming generations the truth of an indifferent universe, or the sweet hope of divine creation and eternal personal life. I am for teaching the truth.

That's not the question. I am also for teaching the truth. The question, as mentioned above, is "which view is the truth"?

Anyway, when death becomes an immediate probability and reality turns unacceptable, people runs away from truth and looks for refuge in the (illusory) hope of religion. There is no chance that religion will ever disappear. But science may easily disappear so we need to strenghten and support it. For example, by teaching it in schools.

I have no problem with teaching science in schools, but maintain that evolution is no more science than creation is. And disagree with the inference that religion may replace science. If anything, given that modern science arose because of a Christian worldview, science's best hope for survival is if Christianity remains around.

To get back to the question of what evolution is, just to give you a taste of what I am getting at, I make the following points.

Creationists agree with some of what evolutionists call evolution. What they disagree with is what can be termed "goo-to-you-via-the-zoo evolution".

Creationists agree with natural selection. In fact it was described by a creationist before Darwin.

Creationists agree with speciation. It is actually predicted by the creation model. And they say that speciation is the result of a loss of genetic information.

Creationists disagree that new genetic information can arise without an intelligent being as the source, and claim that (a) goo-to-you evolution requires this, and that (b) this has not been observed.

In summary, creationist agree with a number of things claimed as evolution that have actually been observed, but disagree with certain claims that have not been observed. And they object to them all being lumped in under the all-encompassing term "evolution".

#24322: — 05/08  at  07:22 AM
I found only two "hard" arguments and one interesting remark in your post:

(1) that unique events cannot be extrapolated, and

(2) that creationists disagree that new genetic information can arise without an intelligent being as the source.

(3) that science's best hope for survival is if Christianity remains around.

Unique events, like the Bing Bang, can and are being be extrapolated. A really big flood, a recent "genetic bottleneck" and such should have left salient footprints in nature. A creationist may say that the marks are there but we are not looking for them or mistaking them for other things. For example, this beautiful flexible bone marrow tissue from a fossil dinosaur. Since all I know about this discovery comes from publications, we will have to wait. I share PZ's confidence that conventional science will explain this discovery too, as it has been doing once and again during the last thousand years. That is not an argument, I know, so let wait.

Regarding the idea that no new information can arise except from an intelligent - extra natural - source, I think mutation - imperfect replication - is the evolutionary mechanism that generates new information.

Regarding christianity being the best insurance for science's survival, may be, but the contrary may also be true. Science requires a tolerant environment to survive, and religious dogmatism can easily kill it. Science is dry and bitter, people will always prefer the sweet illusions offered by religion. Science can easily be weakened, outlawed, forbidden, forgotten. Islamic fundamentalism in the 10th Century destroyed Arab science, and it is now unable to take roots there again. Catholic dogmatism in the 15th Century erased science teaching in Spain and for 400 years ignorance reigned. In the nineteen thirties, Communist Russia decided that Mendelian genetics was inimical to its essence and therefore wrong, and for two or three generations there was no biology (nor living biologists) there. Science is sensitive to dogmatic, fanatic environments and may easily disappear. The United States is one of the best things that ever to happen to humanity, and it would be a pity if fundamentalist attacks, like the current Kansas hearings, weaken its scientific leadership.

#24327: — 05/08  at  09:25 AM
jaimito wrote the bits in boxes:

I found only two "hard" arguments and one interesting remark in your post:

Ooohh? Couldn't you find more than that to chew on?

Actually, what happened to defining "evolution"?

(1) that unique events cannot be extrapolated, and

(2) that creationists disagree that new genetic information can arise without an intelligent being as the source.

(3) that science's best hope for survival is if Christianity remains around.

Unique events, like the Bing Bang, can and are being be extrapolated. A really big flood, a recent "genetic bottleneck" and such should have left salient footprints in nature.

I agree that evidence should be detectable (and claim that it exists). What I was questioning was whether knowledge of these unique events would be derived by extrapolation, rather than by extant evidence.

Extrapolation is really the principle of uniformitarianism (not the idea that scientific laws are uniform throughout the universe). It says that history can be explained in terms of the processes that we see happening today. We can measure erosion rates, etc. and extrapolate them into the past to see how long it took to form the Grand Canyon, for example. Uniformitarianism is the opposite of Catastrophism, which proposes past events unlike what we see happening today. So extrapolating present-day erosion rates and the like will never lead to the idea of a global flood, but that is different to saying that there will be no evidence for a global flood. It's just that the evidence won't be in extrapolation.

A creationist may say that the marks are there but we are not looking for them or mistaking them for other things. For example, this beautiful flexible bone marrow tissue from a fossil dinosaur. Since all I know about this discovery comes from publications, we will have to wait. I share PZ's confidence that conventional science will explain this discovery too, as it has been doing once and again during the last thousand years. That is not an argument, I know, so let wait.

I'm all for waiting, but I don't have a lot of confidence in an objective outcome. For example, I very much doubt that the artifact will be carbon dated, as it is presumed to be too old to retain any C14. Yet I would consider it likely to have C14, which would be strong evidence that it is not as old as claimed.

Regarding the idea that no new information can arise except from an intelligent - extra natural - source, I think mutation - imperfect replication - is the evolutionary mechanism that generates new information.

Mutation is the mechanism that is claimed to provide new genetic information, but information theory argues against this being possible, and observations are that mutations, other than neutral ones, destroy information. There is no hard evidence of mutations ever generating brand-new genetic information, yet for evolution to work, more new information must be generated than the amount of information destroyed.

By the way, "information" is something that carries meaning, such as the instructions to construct proteins and organs. Bits that do not carry meaning are not information. For example, the first sentence below conveys information, the second doesn't, even though both might occupy the same space on an information-storage medium such as a hard disk.

1. The name of the author of this sentence is Philip.
2. Hlac ldqo ejpoib afeoab mbacj aema sd faeljmavs a.

If you feel in the mood to do some reading on how information theory supports creation over evolution, try some of the articles here.

Regarding christianity being the best insurance for science's survival, may be, but the contrary may also be true. ...

Yet, with one exception, your examples were of religions other than Christianity! How does that argue against what I said? The one exception (which I'm not really familiar with) was 15th-century Catholicism, which was a period in which Catholicism was particularly corrupt and "un-Christian". In fact I would go a bit further and say that science arose in Reformed (i.e. post-reformation) Christianity, although I believe that parts of Catholicism have been very pro-science.

The United States is one of the best things that ever to happen to humanity, ...

And isn't it interesting that the United States is one of the most Christian nations on Earth?

...and it would be a pity if fundamentalist attacks, like the current Kansas hearings, weaken its scientific leadership.

Except that those so-called "fundamentalist attacks" are attacking the atheists' origin myth, not science.

#24342: — 05/08  at  12:22 PM
There you go again, Philip.

Someone -- jaimito in this instance -- points out a notorious crime committed in the name of Christianity, and your response is 'those aren't real Christians.'

How are we outsiders to figure that out? The pope isn't Catholic?

I'd like to see your version of information theory, the one in which Philip can look at two identical items -- cultists, in this instance -- and infallibly proclaim one authentic and the other inauthentic.

Face it, Philip, you've signed on to a continuing criminal enterprise and it makes you uncomfortable, but you cannot make yourself break away. Just say No! to murdering Jews, Philip. Just say No! to murdering Gnostics, Philip.

It's really kind of easy when you get used to it.

#24372: — 05/08  at  07:26 PM

those so-called "fundamentalist attacks" are attacking the atheists' origin myth, not science.

Since I am more of an "agnostic" (someone who does not know, but surely doesnt believe in anything supernatural) than a militant "atheist" (someone who wants to impose on others the idea that there is no God), I care little or nothing about defending any creation myth. It would be nice if the question debated in Kansas would be what you say and Creationist's aim would be limited to that. But it is not.

Through this conversation, I feel that personally, all you wish is to secure a space for the Bible. But to me, Creationists are undermining biological science and I object asking teachers to teach anti-science nonsense like the supposed weakness of evolution. Socially, politically, Christianity is very robust and expansive, while science is fragile and vulnerable. The attack on evolution could easily turn it into a taboo, killing all research and discussion.

BTW, I visited the site on the impossibility of creating new genetic information by mutation, and came back convinced that new information is being created all the time. The Japanese nylon eating bacteria proves exactly that. The fact that the precise mechanism is yet unknown cannot be interpreted as that a supernatural being is injecting new genes into bacteria, enabling them to feed on synthetic molecules, as the site seems to insinuate. You may rest assured that a more prosaic explanation is on the way.

#24377: — 05/08  at  08:53 PM
Harry Eagar has ignored pretty well everything that I have written in response to him, but continues to try and pick on things I say, such as with this:

Someone -- jaimito in this instance -- points out a notorious crime committed in the name of Christianity, and your response is 'those aren't real Christians.'

How are we outsiders to figure that out? The pope isn't Catholic?

By comparing their beliefs with what the Bible says. The Bible, not the Pope, is the authority for Christianity.

jaimito wrote the rest of the bits in boxes:

It would be nice if the question debated in Kansas would be what you say and Creationist's aim would be limited to that. But it is not.

How is it not?

Through this conversation, I feel that personally, all you wish is to secure a space for the Bible.

I'm pointing out that the attacks and criticisms of the Bible and its record of creation, etc., are unfounded, inaccurate, and/or biased.

But to me, Creationists are undermining biological science ...

And yet you have not explained nor demonstrated how they are doing this, other than by disagreeing with the origins story that you prefer.

But to me, Creationists are undermining biological science and I ob ject asking teachers to teach anti-science nonsense like the supposed weakness of evolution.

And again, you have not shown that it is nonsense.

The attack on evolution could easily turn it into a taboo, killing all research and discussion.

How? And Why? Does that mean that nobody can criticise any theory put up by scientists (or non-scientists)? Or is evolution in some way sacrosanct?

BTW, I visited the site on the impossibility of creating new genetic information by mutation, and came back convinced that new information is being created all the time. The Japanese nylon eating bacteria proves exactly that.

One example does not equate to "all the time", and the nylon bug does not prove that at all see my next paragraph). And is that all you got from those articles?

The fact that the precise mechanism is yet unknown cannot be interpreted as that a supernatural being is injecting new genes into bacteria, enabling them to feed on synthetic molecules, as the site seems to insinuate.

You have misunderstood the article. It is not saying that God is injecting new genes into bacteria. It is suggesting that God designed the bacteria with a mechanism to create the new genes. Dr. Batten is saying that the evidence is that the new genes are not being formed by chance. If they are not by chance, they must be by design, even if that is by a designed mechanism for their generation.

#24380: — 05/08  at  10:05 PM

...God designed the bacteria with a mechanism to create the new genes.

Well that was very considerate of Him!



...Sorry, I couldn't resist.

#24461: — 05/09  at  11:07 PM
And if we had not gotten around to inventing nylon, God's careful precautions would have seemed pretty silly, wouldn't they?

Anyhow, we can easily perform an experiment to determine whether, in fact, the ID approach is a neutral critique of evolution or a dishonest attempt to force our children to be indoctrinated with murderous Christian doctrines.

We simply draw up a syllabus to teach the kiddies creationism, following the Japanese conception, in which a brother and sister commit incest and generate a goddess who is the progenitor of the current emperor.

This creation story is as valid and checkable as any other, and therefore as worthy to be taught as the silly goatherd's ravings in Genesis.

Philip, I have answered all your questions. I keep bringing up the crimes of Christianity and you keep saying, 'Not me, not me.

Well, it was you. Nobody is making you join up with a gang of cutthroat murderers. You did it of your own free will, and we Unchosen People are entitled to hold you to account.